"master signifier" meaning in All languages combined

See master signifier on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: master signifiers [plural]
Etymology: Calque of French signifiant-maître as used by French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Etymology templates: {{calque|en|fr|signifiant-maître}} Calque of French signifiant-maître Head templates: {{en-noun}} master signifier (plural master signifiers)
  1. (sociology, philosophy) A signifier, i.e. a linguistic sign, with no determinate content beyond itself, serving as a nodal point dominating and grounding the content of a chain of other signifiers. Wikipedia link: Jacques Lacan Categories (topical): Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, Sociology Synonyms: Master-Signifier, master-signifier
    Sense id: en-master_signifier-en-noun-b1mPK55o Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Topics: human-sciences, philosophy, sciences, social-science, sociology

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for master signifier meaning in All languages combined (2.7kB)

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          "text": "The same reversal that gives rise to a new Master-Signifier is at work in ideology: in anti-Semitism, all fears (of economic crisis, of moral degradation …) are exchanged for fear of the Jew […] And is not the same logic also discernible in a horror film like Spielberg’s Jaws? I fear the shark, my friend, and have no other fears. …",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2021, Tahir Abbas, Countering Violent Extremism: The International Deradicalization Agenda",
          "text": "It is the broader umbrella concept of cultural re-birth that acts as a master signifier suturing the vast spectrum of Islamism, from its peaceful articulations to its more violent manifestations.",
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    {
      "word": "Master-Signifier"
    },
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      "word": "master-signifier"
    }
  ],
  "word": "master signifier"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (4d5d0bb and edd475d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.